


like a river runs

by adreamaloud, daneorange (adreamaloud)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-22
Updated: 2015-04-22
Packaged: 2018-03-25 06:53:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3800971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adreamaloud/pseuds/adreamaloud, https://archiveofourown.org/users/adreamaloud/pseuds/daneorange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lexa marches into the woods with all of her ghosts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like a river runs

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the entire Season 2. All errors are mine. Title is from Bleachers.

_All warfare is based on deception. –the art of war, sun tzu_

 

That night they leave the Mountain, Lexa couldn’t sleep. Instead, she spends the night walking around the camp, ensuring that the ill are attended to; taking stock of what’s left. The warriors look upon her with their similarly exhausted eyes before bowing their heads as she passes. _They’re alive,_ she reminds herself. _They’re alive because of that deal._

Truth be told, Lexa thinks she should have slaughtered them deal-making Mountain Men, too.

*

Their healer finds her at the outskirts of camp, watching the Mountain; she approaches gingerly: “ _Heda_ ,” she murmurs. “Let me tend to your wounds, I have seen—”

“How many have you seen?”

“Sixty-four warriors,” answers the healer, ashen-faced. “Eighty-seven civilians. A hundred and fifty or so in all.”

Lexa purses her lips, loosening her grip on her sword. “How many have we lost?”

“Twenty-two,” she says. “They say we’re moving for Polis in the morning. I would like to attend to your injuries before then.”

 _Polis._ Lexa remembers how she’d asked Clarke to see it with her. _The future’s a fickle, fragile thing,_ she thinks, watching the smoke wafting out of the Mountain. It concerns her, but only slightly. _We live to fight another day._

She turns away from the sight as she says, “The commander always goes last.” For the first time that night, Lexa realizes just how bad she aches all over, pain radiating from a gash she’d taken in battle, stretching right across her stomach.

“Please,” the healer says again. Lexa tries to ignore the faraway sound of gunshots as she lets herself be led back into her tent.

The gash is wide but not too deep; nevertheless, the healer takes her time disinfecting Lexa and wrapping her up carefully. She must be not much older than Lexa; like her, she has seen the horrible things this war has wrought. The healer’s fingers tread her skin lightly. Even so, Lexa hisses through it all, biting down on her tongue and swallowing her pained sounds, letting them pool at the back of her throat.

“Are you done?” Lexa clenches her jaw, breathing in as the healer tightens the stitches.

“Almost,” the healer says, and Lexa closes her eyes.

*

_“How did you get this one this time?” Costia asks._

_Lexa sits on the edge of the bed and tries not to grimace as Costia takes off her boot. “I fell off my horse,” she says. “In training, earlier.”_

_Costia shakes her head, smiling as she examines the ankle. “You always fall on this ankle,” she tells Lexa. “Try falling on the other, or this one might consider falling off.”_

_Despite the throbbing pain, Lexa laughs. “It’s not like I’m doing this on purpose.”_

_“Oh really?” Costia says with a smile. “I thought you’re deliberately injuring yourself to land inside the healer’s tent.”_

_“Are you saying you’re not exactly hexing me so I’d fall off my horse and land inside your tent?”_

_Costia wraps her hand tighter around the ankle, and Lexa lets out a startled cry. Costia bites down on her lip, keeping her eyes on her hands. “Easy,” she tells Lexa. “I won’t hurt you.” And then, “You seem to be doing a splendid job as it is.”_

_“Costia,” Lexa says, a half-laugh, half-whimper lining her name. Lexa means it as a warning – she needs to get back soonest, and there are others who need Costia’s attention – but then Costia starts wrapping her up in stern motions, and the rest of Lexa’s statement dies in her throat._

_After she is done, Costia hums to herself, satisfied with her handiwork. “Should keep you out of training for a few days,” she says, smoothing out the bumps. “But the swelling should abate by tomorrow.”_

_Lexa stands, putting her weight on her good foot. “Thanks,” she says, wobbling slightly as she limps toward the exit._

_“You should come see me again if it hurts,” Costia calls out after her._

_“It’s just a sprain,” says Lexa. “I doubt I’ll be needing further attention.”_

_Costia pauses before speaking again: “Come see me again anyway.”_

*

News that the Mountain has fallen spreads quickly; they are on their second day to Polis when word reaches them.

“All of the Mountain?” Lexa asks.

“From the inside,” one of the warriors says. “The Sky People hollowed it out.”

 _Hollowed it out_? “And where are the Sky People?” Lexa asks, tone carefully blank. She isn't sure what she expects to hear, but she asks anyway, though the question at the tip of her tongue really is, _What about Clarke?_

“Back at their camp,” the warrior answers. “Tending to their wounded.”

Lexa breathes out. _The Sky People are alive._ She doesn't understand how Clarke did it, but she supposes her questions can be answered some other time. “And Clarke?”

The warrior pales noticeably, fiddling with his sword. “She is gone, _heda_.”

A chill wraps around Lexa’s heart, and she tries not to be too visibly perturbed. “What do you mean, she is _gone_?”

“She is not at their camp.”

“She didn’t make it out?”

The warrior shakes his head. “She did, but she left. The day after the Mountain fell, Clarke left."

 _Clarke left._ Lexa cannot seem to wrap her head around that. “To what end – To hunt? To explore?”

“We did not approach the camp to ask—”

“Was anyone with her?”

“Her men are all accounted for at the camp. She is alone.”

 _Alone._ For all she’s done, the last thing Lexa wants to hear is that Clarke is alone -- in the woods, Mountain Men or no. “Is she hurt?” Lexa asks. _Perhaps in ways you already know,_ she almost tells herself.

“It does not appear to be so.”

“Is she armed?” The warrior nods, tightening his hold on his spear. Lexa raises her hand. “Stand down. That is not what I mean.”

The warrior bows in apology. “We await your word.”

Lexa just keeps walking. “You will know by sundown.”

*

The peace is tense, but still it is peace, and that meant relatively easier camp at night. It’s been awhile since Lexa last heard her people laugh, and, despite the niggling worry in her heart, Lexa finds herself smiling as she watches over them, rounded up at the campfire, sharing songs and wine.

“This is all thanks to you,” says Indra.

Lexa shrugs, handing Indra some of the wine. “You have heard of the Mountain.”

Indra nods. “I have heard that Clarke has left their camp.”

“Have you heard why?”

“No,” Indra says. “Though it says a lot about how they must have felled the Mountain.”

Lexa shakes her head. “The Mountain no longer matters,” she says. “The Mountain is no longer the enemy.”

That gives Indra pause. Even at peace, her fire-lit profile still strikes a stark, stern look. “You think the Sky People will retaliate.” Indra says it without a hint of a question.

“The Alliance has been broken,” says Lexa. “And their leader is missing.”

“Leaderless, the Sky People are but a mob.”

“Even more dangerous,” says Lexa. “The misguided many.”

“We are an _army_.”

“And we think we have won,” Lexa says. “What a dangerous thing to think.”

Indra sighs. She has been at this for far longer – nobody would be happier to see this war finally over. “The army is tired, _heda_ ,” she says, her voice betraying just how exhausted she also is. “Let them have their victory. For now.”

Lexa nods. “For now.” She raises her wine cup at Indra in a toast, eyeing the merrymaking around them silently. _It’s all temporary,_ she thinks, the foreboding feeling in her gut swirling.

*

In the morning, Lexa summons Indra into her tent. “You asked for me, Commander?”

Lexa is seated on her throne, toying with her knife. “I’m leaving with a handful of men to find Clarke,” she says. “I’ll meet the rest of you in Polis.”

Indra furrows her brow. “Are you sure that is wise?”

“Wiser than you questioning me,” Lexa answers. Indra shifts her eyes in apology, though her face still shows her dissent. “Besides, it is in our best interest to keep the leader of the Sky People alive.”

“The same leader you betrayed,” says Indra. “Clarke may no longer be our best shot at peace.”

“And who is?” asks Lexa. In that split-second her lips sting with the faint memory of Clarke’s mouth. _You’re right,_ Lexa thinks. _She tasted nowhere near peace._ “That Bellamy boy? You’ve seen what those men would do for Clarke.”

“And if we find her, what then?”

“We will take her to Polis.”

“The Sky People would not be happy to know their leader has been kidnapped.”

“Not as a captive – as a _guest,_ ” Lexa emphasizes.

“And if she refuses?”

Lexa looks up from her blade and regards Indra levelly. “I assure you, she will not.”

*

Lexa takes four men and they leave at sunrise, while most of the camp is still asleep and resting from the previous night’s festivities. _Let them have their victory,_ she remembers Indra saying. _For now._ Lexa breathes the morning in and takes a last scan of the camp before heading off.

The word on the ground is that Clarke of the Sky People headed east, so that’s where they go. Lexa walks ahead, expecting the worst – perhaps Clarke hanging from an old trap, or left for dead by the pauna. _These woods are so much more than just a battle ground,_ Lexa thinks, staring at the forest floor, checking for tracks.  

By nightfall the woods look different. Lexa dislikes marching in the dark, but she is told the next village is only a couple of hours away, so she decides to march on well after sundown. Two of her men are from that village and they don’t have to tell her just how much they want to make it at the soonest possible time.

Besides, Lexa is exhausted, and she could certainly use a good bed. All these days walking through the forest with Clarke’s many ghosts have taken their toll, and it is heavy. Lexa feels her armor chafe against her skin where it is bare; she used to not mind, but sometimes she thinks she sees Clarke peering at her through the foliage, and suddenly all the cracks on her skin start to sting and ache.

Lexa shakes it out, adjusting straps and biting down. _There used to be a worse time,_ she tells herself, just as a shadow of Clarke’s accusing eyes disappear into the night.

She remembers Costia, too; remembers how certain corners of these woods will always be _hers._

*

They reach the village around midnight. Lexa is ushered quickly to her tent, where the bed and furs are waiting, and Lexa perches herself on the edge of it as she starts taking off her boots with a long sigh. Inside her skin her bones feel like they’re unfurling; like her body knows it is time to rest. _Not quite yet,_ she tells herself, thinking about Clarke as she tugs at her laces. She is almost done when the knock comes on her door.

“May I come in, heda?”

Lexa clears her throat in response, and the healer comes in with a basin of warm water and some towels. In her other hand, she is holding a basket of antiseptic and cloth. Lexa winces at the mere sight of it.

“You ail, Commander?”

Lexa shakes her head. “No,” she says. “The journey has been tiring.” And then, gesturing to the basin and towels, Lexa forces a slight smile. “Thank you for your assistance.”

The healer lowers the antiseptic basket on the table. “You seek Clarke of the Sky People,” she says, tone low. “She passed by the village three days ago.”

Lexa tilts her head, listening more intently. “Go on.”

“She sought safe passage.”

“Which you granted.”

For a moment, it looks as if the healer is afraid, but then Lexa softens her look and the healer relents. “She told us the Mountain has fallen,” the healer continues. “And that her people helped set our people free. Did she lie, heda?”

Lexa shakes her head slowly. “She was telling the truth.”

The healer smiles, wistful and relieved. “Thank you, heda,” she says, kneeling on the floor to wash Lexa’s feet. “How—how are they?” She asks like she isn’t sure she wants to hear the answer, her voice trembling like the rest of her.

 _Your people are weary,_ she hears Indra go in her head. Still, the healer’s hands are shaking around her ankles.

“They are well,” Lexa says, touching the healer’s shoulder as if to say, _That’s enough._ “We leave in the morning. We are thankful for your accommodation.”

“You can stay as long as you wish, Commander. The village is yours.”

Lexa sends the healer off with a nod, her last word still ringing in her ears _._

_Mine._

_*_

_“What do you mean, everything is theirs?” Lexa asks, standing with her mother on a spot overlooking the village_. _It is still early in the morning; oh, how Lexa loved the early hours more than anything. “You mean, they own everything?”_

 _“It’s different for Commanders,” her mother says_. “ _I don’t think they view it as ownership. Do you know what responsibility is, Lexa?”_

_“It’s when you have something and you have to take care of it.”_

_“And sometimes you don’t own what you have to care for, right?”_

_“Right.”_

_When her mother smiles, it feels like a newly risen sun. “Like you. I care for you because you’re mine, but I don’t own you.”_

_Lexa giggles._ “ _I’m your daughter.”_

_“Someday, this village will need you to be its daughter, too.”_

_*_

Lexa had been too young to understand then, but these days when she needs a moment to remind herself what this is all for, she returns to the cliff with her mother; to that morning they watched the sun rise over their village.

When Lexa closes her eyes that night, she falls asleep to that remembered feeling of her mother’s hand in her braids.

*

Lexa dreams of burning villages every night; that night, it’s TonDC. In her dream she hears the missile roaring from afar, then there’s that burst of blinding light, that ringing in her ears, and the crunching of dead leaves beneath her boots. She remembers running in the dark through the woods.

She remembers Clarke.

Through the years, Lexa has dreamt of many villages razed to the ground, of their burnt dead and the wailing of her people. Each dream got worse as the war raged on; Lexa supposes it’s just fitting that TonDC is now the worst of them.

In her dream, Clarke keeps saying, _Two hundred fifty people died in that village, and you let them burn._ Sometimes the words come even as Clarke’s mouth stops moving. _You felt for them, you felt for them._

_You felt for me._

Lexa wakes ahead of the sunrise, a hand to her chest. Her mouth tastes of ash and Clarke.

*

There is a river not too far from the village, Lexa notes from the maps, and there is no way Clarke could avoid it. She looks at her men, and they all nod gravely, saying, “That would definitely slow her down for a few more days.”

Lexa knows that river; knows how treacherous it could be, at some points. “How long until we reach this?” she asks, pointing to a clearing near where the river meets the path.

“A day, or a day and a half, heda.”

“We’ll make it in a day,” Lexa says, gathering her maps and stowing them away.

*

Lexa charges through the forest trail toward the river, but just enough for their party to have a visual and not any closer. She does not want to startle Clarke -- or worse, provoke her. Gunshots ringing out at the outskirts of the forest at this point would not do anyone good.

“We see her tracks,” her men say. “She can’t be too far.”

Lexa lets out an exhausted breath, hanging onto her horse. “We approach carefully. She is armed.”

“What are our orders?”

“She is not to be harmed. Is this clear?”

Her men nod solemnly. “The Commander of the Sky People defeated the Mountain,” one of them says. “We are in her debt.”

 _Debt._ The word simmers uneasily in Lexa’s gut. Many wars are built around making and collecting them, and exacting revenge upon those who have fallen short. Debt is never a good word, but she keeps her thoughts to herself as she dismounts from her horse carefully.

“Stay here,” she tells them, before heading for the water. The forest floor dips not very far from where they stop and Lexa descends slowly, hand gripping her sword as she makes her way down. The sun is still hot above their heads; this much Lexa can tell despite the heavy forest cover. It must be a little past noon, and Lexa has to wonder if Clarke is hungry.

 _It’s a miracle these woods haven’t killed her,_ she thinks, walking toward the shore. The sun bounces off the water in little diamonds, and Lexa finds it hard not to smile. She hasn’t had the time to admire the beauty of their woods in quite a while. With the war hanging heavy over her head, Lexa’s eyes had been as good as shuttered.  

 _Now that it is over,_ Lexa thinks, breathing in and squinting at the sunlight. It falls on _everything_ so beautifully, and Lexa takes a moment to be taken by the sight. _Now that it is over, everything looks so different._

And now Lexa can afford to look.

There’s rustling in the woods not too far from where she stands, and Lexa’s hand immediately locates the hilt of the nearest dagger clipped on her waist – a habit formed in battle that Lexa has yet to shed. _And maybe for good reason._ She retreats into the forest and walks toward the sound, scanning the area, her footsteps light. She hears the river run interrupted and she thinks, _There is something in the water._

Lexa is not too fond of the water, beautiful as it is. She’s heard of bodies of water much bigger than creeks and lakes and rivers and her heart seizes at the thought. Lexa distrusts anything that cannot be conquered.

When she locates the source of the sound, Lexa’s heart almost drops out in shock: She’s found Clarke. Clarke is in the water, her back is bare under the sun, and—

 _Oh,_ Lexa thinks, gripping the nearest tree tighter. She’s found Clarke, and she is bathing in the river.

*

_“That’s very impolite,” Costia calls out from the water, and Lexa nearly falls off the branch._

_“I’m on watch,” says Lexa, jumping down from the tree and landing gracefully on her steadier foot, a hand on the ground for support. “You’re far away from camp.”_

_“You were following me.” Costia’s tone is teasing and easy, and it throws Lexa, but only a bit. Lexa has known Costia all her life, but never quite like this –this feels like an entirely new Costia altogether. “Can’t a girl bathe in peace?”_

_Lexa sets her jaw, trying to simultaneously suppress a laugh and a blush. “Not too far away from camp, no,” she says, trying to maintain a steady voice._

_“What, you go around protecting people now, heda?”_

_Lexa is fifteen, and definitely not_ heda _, so the blush is probably warranted. “Someone may hear you.”_

_“I don’t think I’m as concerned about being heard as I am being seen,” says Costia. She starts walking back toward the shore slowly, and Lexa holds her breath as inch by inch the water peels away from Costia’s skin, droplets on her shoulder glistening under the sun._

_“Well then,” Costia says, stopping with the water at chest level. “Be useful and hand me my towel.”_

_Lexa stares at Costia, then at her clothes laid out on the rocks. She tries to ignore the tremble in Costia’s tone, thinking it could be the wind. She takes a tentative step toward where the towel hangs by a rock._

_“Before the next Commander is chosen, hopefully, Lexa,” says Costia with a small laugh. She has resumed walking toward the shore, now with her arms across her chest. Lexa picks the towel up quickly and meets Costia by the water, keeping her eyes on her boots._

*

Lexa loses her footing and scrambles forward; the earth is too soft where she decides to plant her boot, and she is too distracted to search for steadier footing. Startled by the sound, Clarke swims toward the nearest rock and hides. When Lexa looks for Clarke’s clothes previously spread on the shore, they are now gone – gun and holster included.

 _Well, this was careless._ “Clarke,” Lexa calls out. “I come amicably.”

From behind the rock, she hears shuffling. She imagines Clarke putting her clothes back on in a hurry, fastening her belt and re-holstering her gun.

“I do not mean harm,” she tries again.

“You are _armed_ ,” Clarke calls back out, still refusing to emerge from the rock.

Lexa breathes out. _Of course._ She makes a show of disarming herself, noisily unfastening her belt of daggers and dropping them upon the rocks, the metal sound ringing over the sound of the river running.

“Your sword,” Clarke says, stepping out from behind the rock just as Lexa drops her sword next to her daggers and raises both her hands, like she’s surrendering. “Where are your men?”

“Where I told them to wait,” says Lexa. “I do not wish to fight.”

Clarke moves closer, her steps tentative, tiny pebbles crunching under her boots as she walks. Her hair is still dripping, and she regards Lexa with a scowl, her hand around the gun on her hip. Lexa tries not to stare at the scar that runs along one side of her face – it still looks too fresh, like Clarke had just sliced herself two days back.

 _The healer did not say if she was injured,_ Lexa thinks, taking a small step backward in time with Clarke’s slow advance.

“Then why are you here?” Clarke spits the words out like she’s disgusted by the mere fact that Lexa is _here._ Lexa does not blame her.

“The woods are not safe,” she says.

Clarke lets out a laugh, bitter and disbelieving. “Haven’t you heard? The Mountain has fallen.”

Lexa just looks at her steadily, hands still up. Clarke remembers her gun and takes it in her hand. “ _Clarke,_ please.” Lexa stares at the barrel of the gun and tries not to shiver. There’s a reason Grounders do not use them. “I have come to talk peace.”

Clarke takes another step. “Peace?” she sneers. Her voice is hoarser than Lexa remembers, and up close like this Lexa can see just how exhausted Clarke is just by looking into her eyes. Lexa is still tracing the circles under them when Clarke flinches and looks away, returning her gun to its holster. Lexa lets out the breath she’s been holding all along.

“There is nothing to talk about,” Clarke says. “We ended your war for you. Enjoy your _peace_.”

It hits Lexa like a slap across the face, but she swallows it down nevertheless. _I deserved that,_ she thinks. “The Alliance is thankful,” Lexa says. She watches as Clarke steps away from her, bending toward the rocky ground. She’s picking up Lexa’s daggers and sword, still with this exhausted face that Lexa had not expected to feel intense pity toward. “The invitation to Polis stands.”

Clarke pauses like she’s weighing the weapons in her hand. Lexa waits; the high afternoon sun keeps burning at the back of her neck, and when Lexa reaches for it, it is almost too warm to touch, her palm scalded lightly.

The scowl is back when Clarke rises to return Lexa’s weapons to her, shoving the things back into her hands. “Just because I didn’t shoot you, doesn’t mean I’m coming with you.”

“Please, Clarke. These woods—”

“Are _better_ than your city, I am sure,” Clarke scoffs. “I don’t need you. We didn’t need you in the Mountain, and I sure as hell don’t need you now.”

Lexa recognizes this stubbornness – it’s the same hard-headedness that nearly got Clarke killed in TonDC. _Not everyone,_ she remembers saying. _Not you._

“I am not leaving you out here.”

“ _Now_ you’re insisting to stay?” Clarke laughs out loud again; the sound echoes off the trees brokenly, like an unfinished aria. “What do you want from me, Lexa?”

Lexa tries not to flinch at the sound of her name; tries to ignore the slight wobbling of her knees. “I want you to stay _alive_ , Clarke,” she says. “It’s easier done when not alone.”

“You think I need you around _to stay alive_? Just how highly do you think of yourself, Commander?”

“Then let me escort you back to your camp—”

“I _said,_ ” Clarke hisses, marching back up to Lexa. “Just how _highly_ do you think of yourself? You think you still get to call the shots?” Lexa breathes deeply as she feels the cold barrel of the gun against her skin as Clarke closes the gap between them. She’s so _close_ and it almost feels like a kiss. “You think you still get to decide who dies and lives?”

“And who does around here?” Lexa grunts, letting out the closest sound to a laugh that she could afford with Clarke pressed up against her like this, a gun to her throat. “You?”

Something flashes in Clarke’s eye at that word – like Lexa woke something _sinister_ deep inside.

When the blow comes, it comes quickly, and the last thing Lexa remembers is Clarke spitting at her before hitting her with the cold, blunt end of the gun across her face.

*

_For the longest time, Lexa dreams about one village burning – her own. The enemy comes for her on the night she is chosen, and Lexa could only do so much with two hands, a sword, and a handful of men. The village burns to the ground, taking her mother with it. By dawn, they count forty-five dead, many of them children and elders._

_Lexa sheds the first seventeen years of her life that night, killing thirty-two men before sunrise._

_The sun’s almost up when she stumbles into Costia’s tent – she had been busy all night stitching up warriors left and right, and when she sees Lexa, the color fully drains from her face, almost like she’d seen a ghost._

_“I thought--” Costia begins, rushing toward Lexa on shaky, exhausted limbs, arms outstretched._

_Lexa drags her legs forward until she could safely fall into Costia’s grasp. Costia carries her all the way to the cot, tugging at the straps of her armor urgently. Lexa burns under her skin and she falls back onto the cot, gasping for air and hissing as her wounds get caught in her armor. Her bones clatter like they’re falling apart._

_“Lexa,” Costia murmurs. “I thought they had you.”_

_Lexa manages a weak smile. “They have to try harder next time.”_

_Costia laughs, but there are tears in her eyes. “These gashes are deep,” she says, touching them gingerly. “You should have come to me earlier.”_

_“The Commander always goes last,” says Lexa._

_“Never with me,” says Costia, sobbing more loudly now, tearing at the cloth with her teeth. “I’ll always pick you first.”_

_Lexa wants to say more, but she passes out from the pain when Costia pours antiseptic all over her wounds._

*

When Lexa comes to, it is already nighttime and her jaw feels swollen. Her mouth is filled with the tangy taste of stale blood, but when she tries to reach up to touch it, she finds her hands restrained.

 _Clarke has tied me to a tree,_ Lexa realizes slowly as her faculties come back to her. Despite the throbbing pain on her face, Lexa finds it in herself to laugh. _How am I not dead?_ she wonders.

_True to form, Clarke of the Sky People still thinks with her heart over her head._

Lexa looks around, squinting and waiting for her eyes to adjust in the dark. She finds her daggers still around her waist, so she maneuvers carefully to nudge one of the blades into her nearer hand. It doesn’t take too long for her to cut through her restraints and free both wrists. They are sore where the rope chafed against them too tightly, but nowhere near as sore as the bottom half of her face, which bore the brunt of Clarke’s anger earlier.

 _Clarke._ The thought pushes Lexa back up to her feet. She takes another sweep of her surroundings, and finds her sword lying not too far away from her spot. _Why had she left my weapons behind?_ Lexa wonders as she picks the sword back up and swings it over her shoulder, taking extra care not to trip on tree roots as she walks.

This side of the woods is too quiet, save for the sound of Lexa’s heart beating hard and loud inside her chest. _Where is Clarke?_ She’s already considering climbing a tree for a better view when she hears the familiar rustling of Clarke’s boots.

Her face starts throbbing again as the chilly night air blows past, but for the most part she is relieved. In the dark, Lexa can’t see clearly what Clarke’s returning with – _Is that kindling?_ She watches from behind a tree as Clarke drops the wood she’s gathered and waits for her to realize that Lexa is gone.

Out of instinct Clarke feels for her gun in the dark and stalks after Lexa, both arms outstretched.

“You keep wielding that weapon like you mean to shoot me,” says Lexa, coming out from behind the tree with her hands up. Surrender just keeps getting easier where Clarke’s concerned. “I was unconscious for most of the afternoon. Why didn’t you kill me?”

Clarke shrugs, returning her weapon to its holder. “Stop testing me, Lexa,” she just says, turning back around and making her way toward her gathered firewood. The night is falling around them quickly, and the chill approaches just as fast.

After a while, Lexa figures it is now safe to follow so she does, sitting back down near the tree where she found herself earlier, watching Clarke make fire. At first she has her reservations – while she’s certain the Sky People had their own means of producing fire, she doubted that these methods involved kindling and friction. Clarke takes a while, but she gets it going anyway, and Lexa tries not to look so amused. She’s aware it is condescending, and as she’s proven time and again, being on the shorter end of Clarke’s patience is an unlikeable situation, at best.

“What part of _leave me alone_ did you not understand, Lexa?” Clarke asks upon seeing Lexa staring at the fire from the tree across.

“You have fire,” Lexa says, shrugging. “And it is cold.”

“What about your men?”

“They’ll stay put as long as they have to,” Lexa says.

“Which is?”

“Until I return with you.”

Clarke shakes her head as she stokes the fire with a stick. “I should have crossed the river.”

“You would have needed a boat,” Lexa points out.

“I survived jumping off Mount Weather,” Clarke says. There is so smugness in her voice; Lexa even notes a tinge of disbelief. There’s a slight twinge in her chest as she remembers Anya. Already it feels like a different lifetime entirely. “I should have just started swimming.”

“The river is treacherous,” Lexa says gravely. “I’ve never known it to be kind.”

“Well, at least it’s consistent,” says Clarke, and for a while, they are silent. Lexa takes to staring at Clarke’s hands, dirtied by the earth and illuminated by the fire. She thinks about the first time she’d had to build a fire alone; she’d taken herself as far into the forest as she could, embarrassed to be seen to be trying too hard. She was a proud child; always has been.

And here she is, still learning how to take her losses well. _I lost someone too,_ she remembers telling Clarke. Yet on nights like this, when their ghosts come out and surround her, she has to wonder, really, just how much is _lost_.

“Fine,” Clarke says, throwing more wood into her fire. The flames dance around in the dark, and for a split-second Clarke’s eyes shine bright with them. “Stay or whatever. I’m going to sleep.”

Lexa doesn’t say anything; just watches as Clarke settles against the tree more comfortably, her arms around herself, her gun by her hip.

*

_The night she loses Costia, it’s in another village entirely. The enemy surrounds them and tears through her men, one by one. The word that rings in her ear is ‘blindsided.’ Looking at the ruins around her, Lexa tries not to think about that morning, which she spent sitting by the lake with Costia laughing. What difference the hours between have made._

_They take Costia, because they need the healer. Her secrets. Lexa cuts the limbs of the enemy’s dead and sends them back to their camp in staggered rations, demanding her return._

_Costia does, in similarly staggered rations. Lexa still remembers the last box that contained her head._

_*_

“Lexa.”

When she wakes, it is still dark and already cold, and her eyes feel swollen. Lexa rubs at them nevertheless, slightly embarrassed that her hands come away moist. She finds Clarke kneeling before her, hand gripping Lexa’s shoulder firmly.

“I’m sorry,” Lexa says, her mouth dry. “It was my watch. I wasn’t supposed to—”

“You did,” Clarke says. Her voice still has that jagged edge to it, but it is noticeably softer. Clarke gives Lexa’s shoulder a final shake before letting go. “You were screaming.” She returns to her spot and moves to make a new fire. The night is still cold. “I thought I should wake you up.”

“Oh.” It’s been a while since she’s had _that_ Costia dream; it must be all that remembering taking its toll. In the wake of the war ending, she’s had more time to think than usual. Perhaps this is her mind trying to tie up loose ends. She shifts her gaze over at Clarke, who is now intently focusing on rekindling the fire, her brows furrowed. Lexa wonders if Clarke dreams, too.

“I shouldn’t have fallen asleep,” says Lexa.

“You shouldn’t have done a lot of things,” Clarke says, just as the fire hisses to life. Clarke lets out a long sigh as she stumbles back into her tree, her hands open.

“We do what we have to,” Lexa says, gathering her knees to her chest. Still a comforting thing after all these years. “Even the things we don’t want to.”

The fire keeps spitting and hissing and they lapse into a longer silence. This time Lexa keeps herself wide awake, listening in as Clarke shifts and shuffles until her breathing evens out.

*

By the time Clarke wakes, Lexa has already returned from her morning hunt with game, and is already roasting a hare over a fire.

“You’re still here,” Clarke says as she stretches awake, slightly startled by Lexa’s activity. “What are you doing?”

“I am hungry,” says Lexa. “There’s plenty for two.”

Clarke scoffs, but she sits across Lexa and takes what she offers, wolfing it down with a grunt. “Where are your men?” she asks, throwing the bone away and wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Heading to Polis,” she says. “I told them that your terms were that I return with you alone.”

Lexa thinks she sees the ghost of a smile on Clarke’s face, but it lasts for only a millisecond; all too quickly it fades from her lips as she remembers who she’s with. “I’m not coming with you.”

“Why?”

Clarke turns away. “I don’t want to be around you,” she says, marching toward the river.

Her words root Lexa to her spot, and she tries to keep chewing, even as the food starts tasting staler and staler in her mouth.

*

_“You can’t keep following me forever,” Lexa says to the dark. It’s one of those nights again that Costia comes to her quietly, sitting in the corner of her tent, looking as real as ever._

_Only she isn’t – she hasn’t been real in months, and Lexa knows this; knows that when she reaches out the space would be cold, and Costia’s eyes would still be blank, and her lips still won’t move even as she hears Costia’s voice repeat the word, “Forever.”_

_If there’s anything the last few months have taught her, it’s that forever is much longer than this._

_*_

Clarke stays by the river for two more days. Lexa keeps her distance and they don’t speak. After a while, Clarke just gives up telling Lexa to leave and lets her be, ignoring her for most of the day.

Most of the day, Lexa just watches. Clarke likes sitting near the water, listening to the river, while Lexa stays amid the trees, looking on wordlessly.  By nightfall, they take turns making the fire and stoking it. They hunt separately, but they eat together, huddled around the flame. Lexa tries not to stare and Clarke tries to pretend Lexa isn’t there. Everything happens so quietly, and Lexa doesn’t mind; she doesn’t know what to say, anyway.

On the day Clarke decides to leave the river, she just packs without a word and starts walking. Lexa allows Clarke a head start before following, maintaining the space for Clarke’s comfort, but never letting her out of her sight completely. Clarke does not turn her head, not once, but Lexa knows she _knows_ she’s still here.

Clarke wanders in the woods for a while; Lexa can tell she’s doing it on purpose, perhaps in an effort to lose her. _Not a chance,_ Lexa thinks, a small smile playing on her face. She knows these woods like the back of her hand, and she _knows_ if Clarke keeps on going the way she is, she’s most likely taking the long way back around.

 _Where are you going, Clarke?_ Lexa thinks, but then again, she’s not here to ask questions, for a change.

*

It rains in the afternoon – a sudden burst that drenches Lexa immediately from head to heel. It starts as slow, gentle taps on her head, before turning into a full-blown torrent by the time Lexa looks up. The rain washes over her face and Lexa manages a little laugh. She hasn’t had a careless rain-drenched moment in a very long while, so her initial plan to run for cover is abandoned quickly as she chooses to relish the moment _._ Instead, she keeps walking in her water-logged boots, trying to keep an eye on Clarke, now shivering inside a huge hollowed out tree.

Lexa approaches, slowed by the rain. It doesn’t look like it’s about to let up, so she thinks, _Might as well._  Clarke glares at her through the downpour as she wipes the rain from her face. Lexa stops just outside the entrance, the rain still beating hard on her nape, waiting for Clarke’s permission. The water is cold as it cascades down her shoulders, but Clarke’s stare is white-hot; it shoots across Lexa’s veins, and feels molten. Slowly, Clarke inches away from her, making room. She does not look all too happy about the rain, but for the first time since Lexa found Clarke, Lexa does not feel so actively abhorred.

After a while of quiet, Clarke finally says, “The first time we had rain, we were at the drop ship.” Clarke’s teeth chatter in the cold. Lexa looks over at her quietly, watching her run her hands rapidly up and down her arms for warmth. “I mean – we knew from books what rain was – _water cycle_ , and everything – but being down here… it was something else.”

Lexa nods, breathing out. There’s that faraway sound of thunder, and she finds herself instinctively gripping her sword tighter. They still sound like war drums in the distance.

“I don’t even know why I’m telling you this,” Clarke says again. She’s still rubbing at her arms for warmth. Lexa keeps huddled to herself and says nothing. She thinks about starting a fire right where they are, but she has only to look down on her muddied boots to conclude that the ground is still too drenched to handle it.

“Planting season,” Lexa finds herself muttering, a while after. Clarke turns to her with a confused look on her face, and Lexa struggles to explain further. “Some of our people are land-tillers. Usually the rain signals the onset of planting season.”

Clarke looks out, staring at the rain. Lexa can see her struggle to hide the fascination in her eye, but it twinkles there, nevertheless. “In the Ark, some of us thought the earth had been damaged so horribly it wouldn’t be able to sustain life. That’s how we got sent here in the first place – to find out.”

“If the earth had been damaged so horribly?”

“If it would kill us eventually,” Clarke says, the struggle to keep her tone level audible over the steady sound of the rain. Lexa thinks about how little she actually knows of the Sky People, outside of the war and the things their elders handed down – small stories lined with spite and hate about peoples of nations who just up and left and never looked back. Lexa never quite believed them herself – until the drop ship fell out of the sky. “And it did, actually. Just in ways we hadn’t expected, but should have.”

“We are what we are,” Lexa just says. Clarke looks over her shoulder, recognizing the words; Lexa notes the small twitch in Clarke’s hand as she hears them. Lexa remembers Finn, the massacre of that village, even Anya. _A different life entirely,_ she thinks, pushing them to the back of her head – a practiced move, one that has served her very well, all these years.

The rain stops, and Lexa gets up from the forest floor, ignoring the mud caked under her clothes where she’d sat. Clarke pushes herself off the tree wall, gets out without a word and keeps walking.

*

Clarke leads them right to the drop ship.

“What are you doing, Clarke?” Lexa asks, only slightly wary. So Clarke _was_ taking the long way around, in a way that baffles Lexa in the end. _Was it just an extended walk in the forest, then? Was Clarke just taking her time to clear her mind?_

Clarke doesn’t answer. Instead she heads to a clearing beyond the drop ship, like she does not even intend to enter it in the first place. Dusk is falling slowly and Lexa has already lost count, just how many days she’s been gone.

It takes a while before Lexa realizes where they are: This is a graveyard.

 _Oh,_ she just thinks, watching Clarke lower herself to one knee. Lexa scans the area and counts more than a dozen markings. “Your dead?” Lexa asks softly, getting down on a knee herself, eyes still on Clarke. Clarke nods, taking her time to look from marker to marker.

“My best friend in the Ark,” Clarke begins muttering again, and when she looks around her, she gets this haunted look that Lexa wishes she does not recognize so instantly. “His name was Wells. He wasn’t even supposed to be on the drop ship. He did it for me.”

“People tend to do that around you a lot,” says Lexa. It comes out wrongly; Lexa almost regrets the off-hand comment as Clarke turns to her with a scowl on her face, like she’s offended; she holds it for a while before it simmers out, her face relaxing into something more muted and blank, and Lexa exhales carefully. “How did he die?” she asks.

“Murdered by one of us,” Clarke says, matter-of-factly. “Wells’ father was leader of the Ark. He made a lot of enemies. Killed people in the name of justice.” Clarke spits it out with vitriol that Lexa cannot wrap her head around. “People who were also sons. Brothers. _Fathers_.” She pauses as she digs her hand into the earth. “It was a little girl who was only trying to slay her demons.”

“What business did a little girl have on the drop ship to earth?”

“The same business your little girl had when she died on that bridge,” Clarke answers.

 _In the end, aren’t we all just little girls,_ Lexa thinks. She remembers Anya again, and that soft look she used to get whenever she saw Lexa after Lexa was called to be Commander. _Until life chooses you._

“Some are simply born into it,” says Lexa. “Some don’t have much of a choice.”

“Some can afford to make better choices,” says Clarke, lifting her hand from the earth, letting the soil slip through her fingers. “Wells shouldn’t have been on the drop ship.”

Lexa nods. After all, what could she say? Much of her life has been strung together by what if’s and shouldn’t haves – much like Clarke’s: So much of life already preconfigured; so much of it only waiting to play out.

_If her mother hadn’t been her mother._

_If Costia hadn’t been hers._

_If she hadn’t kissed Clarke._

Lexa looks down at her hands. _Then I be killer._ For many nights after, she told herself she’d kissed Clarke asking for her army, not love; tried hard to convince herself that Clarke had misunderstood her proposition for _feelings_. That it was strategy. That it was nothing more than a ploy.

 _This is our way, this is our way, this is our way,_ was what she kept telling Costia’s ghost in the corner.

On the night she stops believing herself, Costia starts weeping, and Lexa does too.

*

Clarke pushes herself off the ground and walks toward the camp’s entrance, before she stops at the corner, like she’s asking Lexa to come along. Lexa springs to her feet, blinking the memory of Costia away and unsheathing her sword.

Clarke just looks at her, then at her sword-wielding hand. “It’s empty,” she says, pushing the gate open.

“You don’t know that,” Lexa says, setting her jaw.

Clarke just shrugs and steps in with a loud, “It’s me.” Lexa falls back, her grip on her sword tighter. For a moment there, she lets the cold dread wrap around her, thinking she may have walked right into Sky People territory without her guards; how easy it is to exact revenge. While Lexa is generally uncertain about how Clarke’s people treat traitors, she is sure that no one in their camp would balk at having to shoot her on sight.

Clarke turns to her again, gestures for her to look around. She is right; the camp is abandoned, and Lexa exhales slowly, stowing her sword, before remembering to go down on a knee to touch the soil.

“Your 300,” Clarke murmurs. “Why didn’t you demand my head for them? You knew I killed them.”

“Warriors die in battle,” says Lexa. “The people Finn massacred were not warriors in battle.”

Clarke nods, swallowing. “Not all of the people who died inside Mount Weather were warriors, either.”

It’s the most Lexa hears from Clarke about the Mountain; she has many questions, but she chooses to bite her tongue. “ _People_ die in battle, Clarke,” she just says.

Clarke says nothing. She turns around and walks instead toward the entrance of the drop ship, hands in her jacket. 

“You did it for your people,” Lexa calls out after her. Clarke turns to look at her, but the look on her face is blank, unreadable. “That’s why I didn’t ask for your head.”

Clarke tilts her head; in the slow-falling dark, Lexa can see, for the very first time, a shadow of a smile – something real, for a change. Not a ghost.

“I camp here for the night,” Clarke tells her instead. “You can stay, if you wish.”

*

Clarke moves around the camp expertly, weaving in and out of nooks and emerging out of corners with a wan smile on her face. This place haunts her, this much Lexa is sure. Home does that to its returning children.

Lexa sits outside. It does not feel right to enter it. She doubts Clarke would want that, either, so she makes a fire in one of the pits and keeps warm. The night is young but the cold is already gnawing its way into her bones.

When Clarke comes back out, she is handing Lexa some clothes. “Leftovers,” she tells her, sitting across her and staring at the fire. “There’s more inside, if we need to be warmer.”

“Wouldn’t it be warmer if _you_ were inside?” says Lexa, fingers brushing against Clarke’s hand as she takes her offer. Clarke shakes her head, putting her palms to the fire. “I could keep watch.”

“No,” Clarke says, moving her fingers and letting the flames dance as close to them as possible.  Her shadows flit across the leaves on the ground, and Lexa finds herself smiling. “Here is fine.” Lexa wonders just what is inside this ship; what painful memories it holds inside its metal walls. Lexa squints at it in the dark; its paint has faded and there is rust on the door hinges and there are tell-tale signs of burning along its floors. Lexa winces, then sighs.

 _They burned here,_ she thinks, her fingertips itching. She searches the drop ship’s façade until she comes across scrawls on one side.

“My mother wrote that,” Clarke says, perhaps noticing the way Lexa stares at the markings. “When they first landed. When they got here, we had already been taken by the Mountain Men.” And then, “Anya kept me alive. I—I wish I had been able to return the favor.”

“You did,” says Lexa, voice small. “You freed her people. Her sisters. Her warriors’ children.” Clarke’s eyes shimmer, and Lexa thinks for a moment that she’s about to cry. “When I said the Alliance is thankful, I don’t think you realize fully what I meant.”

The look on Clarke’s face hardens, and just like that the moment is done. “We did our best to hold up our end of the deal,” she says. “The things I have had to do, just because you didn’t hold up yours.”

“If you’re looking for an apology, I believe it is not forthcoming,” says Lexa.

Clarke laughs – a bitter, exhausted sound. “Then why are you even here?”

“As I’ve said, I come in peace. The peace I bear comes from a different place.”

Clarke spits at the ground; it lands on Lexa’s boot, and Lexa tries not to flinch. “I prefer to have nothing to do with it,” she says. “Leave my people alone from hereon. _That_ is the only peace I will accept.”

“And I will make sure that request is honored,” Lexa says. “Though I have my doubts that your people will leave my people alone after what happened at the Mountain.”

“You should have thought about that before you betrayed us, then.”

Lexa casts a sad look at Clarke, who is looking back at her with fury in her eyes. “You don’t understand,” Lexa says calmly. “My people are grateful, yes. The war is over, this is true. But make no mistake -- they will respond to bloodshed the way they always have.”

“Is that what this is about then? A message to my people?” Clarke shakes her head before turning away from the fire, wrapping her jacket tighter around herself. “You could have just sent someone directly to camp instead of coming after me. This has been a waste of your time, Commander. I’m no longer their leader.”

“Clarke,” Lexa calls out, staring at Clarke’s back as she keeps walking right into the drop ship, leaving Lexa behind.

*

Lexa lets Clarke have her quiet, tending to the fire and keeping watch. She wonders if the Sky People are looking for Clarke, and if they were, if they’d ever thought about looking for her here. _Of course,_ Lexa tells herself, _This must have been the first place they searched._

The night is quiet, save for the fire and the occasional sound of Clarke’s boots, moving around inside the drop ship. It is too dark to see what she is doing exactly, from where Lexa is seated, but with her eyes adjusting to the dark, Lexa can almost see Clarke sitting in one corner, staring in the mid-distance. Sometimes she wonders about Clarke’s ghosts and what she does with them – does she just let them fall in step with her? Does she tell them to leave her alone?

Or has she managed to shed all her ghosts? If this is so, Lexa wants to know how.

The sound of glass breaking from Clarke’s area alerts Lexa; she turns her head sharply toward the sound and pulls herself quickly to her feet, a dagger in her hand. As she draws closer, she hears Clarke muttering in a low voice – she’s _cursing,_ and when Lexa reaches the mouth of the drop ship, she sees that Clarke seems to be wrapping her forearm briskly in the dark.

“Clarke?” Lexa asks softly, lowering her dagger and tucking it away. “Are you all right?”

Clarke hisses. _She’s in pain,_ Lexa registers, as she walks closer toward her with purpose. Clarke is holding her arm aloft, the cloth around it moist. The space smells of blood. “I’ll be fine,” Clarke says, voice tight. “It’s just a small slice. It’d heal.”

Lexa stares at the swath of red seeping onto the wrap, and she has to wonder what exactly Clarke thinks is a _minor_ cut. “Do you have something to put on it?”

Clarke shakes her head. “We took all the medicine with us to camp,” she says. “The pressure will have to do for now.”

“No,” Lexa says, before turning to leave. “Stay here.”

“Where are you going?”

Lexa doesn’t answer; Clarke won’t hear her anyway – she is fiercely stubborn, and now she has carelessly sliced herself in the dark. _No one is bleeding out on my watch,_ Lexa thinks, walking into the woods.

*

_“You’re not paying attention,” says Costia, lining up the leaves before Lexa on the table. “This will save your life someday. Or maybe somebody else’s, who knows.”_

_Lexa smiles. “I’m going to be a terrible healer,” she just says, but still she leans closer, if only to stare at Costia’s annoyed expression some more. “I hope I never have to do this for anyone apart from myself.”_

_“I hope I never have to do this for you,” Costia mumbles. “Open your hands.” Lexa complies quickly, palms up and only slightly trembling. She gets this a lot, lately, with Costia so close. She doesn’t quite understand where the tremors come from, but this is Costia, anyway -- Lexa supposes it can’t be that bad._

_Costia lowers the first leaf, gently. “Now, what is this for?” Lexa knows but just to incense her, she puts on this blank face, and Costia rolls her eyes. “Lexa,” she says firmly. “Remember. Ordinary wounds, okay? From daggers or blades. Or swords.” They both shudder at that. Costia has repeatedly told her that she does not completely comprehend why Lexa can’t just be a healer, too; why she has to train with the others._

_“This one?” Costia asks again, pressing another leaf into her palm. Lexa breathes in; Costia’s touch burns. “I just told you all this a while ago.”_

_“They all look the same to me,” Lexa says, but the smile at the edge of her lips gives away the lie._

_“You’re the smartest girl in this village,” says Costia, narrowing her eyes at Lexa, a tentative smile on her lips. “Surely you must know the difference between what cures ordinary and poisonous wounds.” Costia’s tone has taken a more serious turn, and Lexa looks up from her hands, waiting for Costia to meet her eyes._

_“I do,” Lexa says solemnly, once Costia catches her gaze. Her throat feels unbelievably dry, and she finds her eyes straying toward Costia’s lips, half-parted now. “Though the honor of being the village’s smartest is yours, not mine.”_

_Costia bites down on her lip. “I still don’t understand why you’re training to be Anya’s second.”_

_“You don’t understand,” says Lexa, closing her hand gently around Costia’s, leaf still within. “It feels like my spirit has been called here.”_

_“I know,” says Costia. “It’s just—I want you to be always safe.”_

_“I don’t think that’s how it works,” says Lexa. “The warriors are the ones who keep the other safe.” She looks at Costia again, still staring at where their hands are joined on the table. “_ I’ll _be the one to keep_ you _safe.”_

_“And what do you know?” Costia says, laughing lightly. “You’re fifteen.”_

_*_

_Come on Costia,_ Lexa finds herself thinking, sorting through the leaves in the dark. _Help me out here._ Lexa has done this a lot, but not often enough to be fully confident, and most especially not in the dark like this. It makes her wish she carried the healer’s antiseptic around as a quick recourse.

She finds what she’s looking for deeper in, amid bushes familiar enough to inspire relief. She cuts off enough to last for three changes before returning to the drop ship, her strides quick.

Clarke is already seated by the time Lexa returns, back against wall and hand gripping her arm. Even in little light, Lexa can see that she is pale. When Lexa gets near enough, she drops to one knee and pries Clarke’s injured limb from her grasp carefully. Clarke moans through gritted teeth as Lexa administers the salve wordlessly.

Clarke’s breathing evens out as Lexa applies fresh bandages around the wound. “How do you know this?” she asks, voice nothing but a soft rasp.

“Costia was a healer,” Lexa just says simply. Clarke’s breath hitches at the mention of the name.

“Your Costia,” whispers Clarke.

“My Costia,” Lexa says back, nodding in the dark. She remembers standing by Clarke at the foot of Finn’s pyre in TonDC, staring at the ashes. The memory ushers in the others – including those that make sitting this close to Clarke a somewhat stinging thing.

Clarke lets Lexa finish in silence; if she notices Lexa’s shaky hands, she does not show it.

“You should keep this,” Lexa says as she secures the wrap, pressing the rest of the salve into Clarke’s palm. “This should be good for two more changes.”

Clarke smiles at her weakly. “Thanks.” Lexa nods as she moves to get up; she knows Clarke prefers to be alone. She’s nearly out of the drop ship when Clarke calls out again: “Where are you going?” Her voice is strained, and it tears at Lexa inexplicably.

“Back to the fire,” Lexa replies. “You should rest.”

“You should stay a bit,” Clarke says, wincing. She’s gripping her arm and twisting restlessly, still somewhat pained. Off the question on Lexa’s face, she just says: “It burns.”

Lexa walks back to her, sitting a fair distance from where Clarke’s leaning back against the wall. “It does that for a bit,” she says softly. “You just have to ride it out.”

Clarke nods, screwing her eyes shut and throwing her head back against the wall, hissing. “I can do that,” she says. “I just have to keep my mind off it.”

Lexa settles more comfortably in her space, her eyes on Clarke. “How can I help?” In the dark, Clarke’s shadow shifts and shuffles until she finds a more comfortable position.

“I don’t know,” Clarke says. “Keep talking.”

Despite herself, a small smile starts playing across Lexa’s lips. “I doubt you want to hear any more of my stories, Clarke.”

“Tell me about Costia,” says Clarke, her voice so tender that Lexa cannot find it in herself to refuse. “What was she like? You said she was your village’s healer? How did that work?”

“Clarke.”

“How was it like, before all this? Was there ever a time you were not at war?”

Lexa closes her eyes and tells herself to keep breathing, even as she hears the question Clarke is not asking: _Who were you before you became who you are now?_ Some days, Lexa finds herself asking the same question – an entirely useless endeavor, by the way. It is done; it changes nothing.

“Do you dream about her? Is that why you were screaming a few nights ago?”

“ _Clarke,_ ” Lexa interrupts, firmly but gently.

Clarke lets out a soft giggle, exhaling brokenly. “In Mount Weather, I cut myself open on purpose, so I could land inside the clinic and poke around.”

“You have never been one to shy away from pain, Clarke,” Lexa says. “If it seems to take you closer to your goal.”

“We do what we have to – you always say this.”

“It’s always good to remind ourselves of that.”

“With the war ended, what do we _have to do_ now?” Clarke asks. “I massacred everyone on the Mountain – now what?”

Truth be told, Lexa knows – the Alliance is only good as long as it had a solid common enemy, and nothing more. With the common enemy now gone, the Alliance stands to disintegrate, and Lexa finds herself at a fork in the road: What good is a Commander for at a time of peace?

So Lexa returns to Polis – when she arrives, what then? All her life she has known little else apart from war.

She looks at Clarke, still clutching her hand, and she has to wonder herself: What would Clarke like to do?

“I don’t know,” Lexa admits, and for the first time in this forest, Lexa truly feels open and vulnerable. “I was hoping to find out when I get to Polis.”

“You shouldn’t have come to look for me,” says Clarke. “Polis is waiting.”

“And it will, for as long as it has to,” Lexa says. “How are you feeling?”

Clarke gasps as she scratches at her wraps. “Still burning,” she says. “Just keep talking. About Costia. About Polis. Everything.”

Lexa breathes in. “We were children together,” she begins. “Costia and I.”

*  

Lexa hasn’t talked about Costia like this in _years –_ since her death, as a matter of fact. All this time, it hasn’t really occurred to Lexa, how she hasn’t even properly grieved – she’s torched one enemy village after the other, and slit hundreds of Reaper throats between that day and today, but she has yet to fully wrap her head around the loss.

Perhaps the most surprising of all is Clarke’s reaction to Costia’s ghost – the way she looks at Lexa like she understands _exactly_ what it means to be haunted.

“We’re not so different,” Lexa tells her. “This is why I came looking for you.”

“When I realized it was you in the woods, I really thought you wanted to kill me.”

 _I wanted to save you,_ Lexa almost says, but she holds her tongue; too many truths for a night. “I wanted to make sure—had I lost you in the war, it would have been difficult, but not unexpected,” she says instead. “But the war is over. It would be a waste to lose more lives – more so if it’s yours.”

Clarke manages to sleep shortly before dawn, and Lexa gets up to make a new fire that would last them until sunrise. These hours between are the coldest, so Lexa lights up two pits before spreading Clarke’s furs over her sleeping form.

In the morning, Clarke finds Lexa near the gates to the drop ship, staring into the woods. Lexa notes that the color on Clarke’s cheeks has returned, and that she is no longer grasping her arm.

“How is it?” Lexa asks, glancing at her bandages.

“Much better,” Clarke responds with a smile. “Thank you.”

Lexa looks away at that, keeping her eyes fixed on a safer point, deep into the forest. Everything about this morning is vibrant and brimming with life, and Lexa almost forgets everything they have had to do to get a day like this.

“Have you decided if you’re going back to your camp?”

Clarke shakes her head. “I can’t face them,” she says quietly. “Not after the Mountain.”

“You brought your people to safety,” Lexa says, confused. “You’re a hero.”

“I’m a monster,” says Clarke. It’s out so matter-of-factly that Lexa almost winces. “I didn’t just kill the enemies in that Mountain – I also killed _friends_. People who helped us. _I_ killed them too.”

“You did it so your people would live,” Lexa says. “I don’t think you should apologize for that, but if it helps you to forgive yourself, then do what you must.”

“I wish it were so easy,” says Clarke.

“Who said it was?”

Clarke lets out a long sigh that almost sounds like a sob. “In TonDC, when I saved my mother from the missile, she _knew_ that we knew,” she says. “And she looked at me like she was truly revolted. That I could be party to decisions like that.”

“We were at war, Clarke.”

“When I pulled the lever that killed the Mountain Men, it was so they’d stop torturing my mother.” Clarke grows quiet and Lexa tries not to stare at where her pulse beats right under the skin of her neck. “I did it for her, and I’d do it again.”

“I’d do the same for my own,” Lexa says. “Oh, the things I would do for her. Again and again.”

Clarke’s eyes turn soft as she looks at her. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” says Lexa. “Your mother is _alive,_ and she is waiting to be with you in your camp. Isn’t that enough reason to go back?”

“But what good is it being in the midst of loved ones you couldn’t look in the eye?” Clarke asks. “Every moment I spend looking at them is every moment I remember what it took to take them home.”

“The Mountain Men were at war with the earth,” Lexa says. “They were using our _blood_ as ammunition.” Clarke looks up at the canopy of trees – Lexa watches the slow descent of tears on Clarke’s face.

“The earth killed them, Clarke; in the end, it was never really you.”

 *

“I should be heading back to Polis,” Lexa says. They have been in the woods for two weeks, if Lexa’s memory serves her well; it’s actually a miracle that a search party hasn’t been sent out yet for her. “If you don’t want to come with me, then at least let me escort you to your camp.”

“I’m not sure I could go back.”

“Then Polis is waiting for you, too.”

Clarke looks at her like she’s considering it; Lexa tries to keep herself from hoping. _Even in times of peace, hope has its way of breaking hearts,_ she reminds herself.

“I’m not sure I belong there either,” says Clarke. “I say this without spite, Lexa: Why don’t you just leave me here? My wound is fine. I can manage.”

Lexa bites down on her lip. _Answer carefully_. “The same reason you didn’t leave me to die. That day with the pauna, with my broken arm and that cage. Do you remember what you said?”

A pause. “I said I needed you,” Clarke says. “The war is over, Commander. You have no need for me.”

_That’s not true._

“What did you say?” Clarke asks.

Lexa’s eyes go wide upon realizing that she had indeed spoken. “I said, that isn’t true.”

The way Clarke looks at her reminds Lexa of that day inside that tent; it feels like a thousand years have passed since they began to march upon the Mountain, but still: The taste of that moment on her lips is as fresh as ever.

“What do you want from me, Lexa?”

“I want you to be _safe_.”

“And in this moment, I am,” says Clarke. “But we both know how the rest of this should go.”

*

They walk to a clearing overlooking the camp – close enough for it to be visible, but not enough for Clarke to be easily seen by the people manning the perimeter.

“We should stop here,” Clarke offers. “I’m afraid if they see you, they’ll start shooting at you.”

“It doesn’t matter, this is just a body,” Lexa says. “Perhaps with the war over, its work is finished.”

That elicits a sharp breath from Clarke, who steps closer, somewhat protective. “Do not say that.”

“It was in jest,” says Lexa, reaching out to touch Clarke’s bandaged arm. “I did not mean to upset you.”

“I’m not.” Clarke reaches out herself, hand soft upon Lexa’s shoulder. It takes all of her not to lean in closer, wrap an arm around Clarke in kind. “Thank you, _heda_.”

“May we meet again,” Lexa replies.

Lexa pauses to let the words sink in; her mind floods with images of Clarke’s could-have-beens in Polis -- oh, how the city would have been livelier with her. How it would have been filled with plenty of possibilities. And how the stars would have shone brightly over the city.

All that imagined beauty swells in her chest until it aches and aches.

 


End file.
